Pages

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

How to Turn Your Smartphone into a Touchscreen Table

You may recall seeing this sort of urban legend back in 2011. It was a very well-faked viral video of
a table made to mimic the screen of an iPhone, thereby becoming a giant
phone. Well guess what? Now that crazy table is real!

Introducing TableConnect, a table that turns your iPhone, iPad, or Android into a giant touchscreen table.

Currently seeking funding on Indiegogo, the prototype for TableConnect is sleek, minimal, and pretty darn good-looking.

Here’s how it works:
Simply plug your phone or tablet into the table, and everything you can
do on your phone becomes 100 times bigger. It’s as simple as that.

At
60 inches, this is bigger than most average flatscreen TVs, making the
whole touchscreen thing something you can share with friends,
colleagues, and family. Play games, go through presentations, brainstorm
and write down notes with a stylus – the possibilities for how you use
such a table are endless.
The
gaming aspect is probably the most appealing, as it makes game-play
more active than a couple of thumbs twiddling on a tiny screen. It’s
sort of like what the Wii did for Nintendo, by making people get up and
move around.

And
it’s not just a TV on four legs. It’s a piece of luxury furniture that
can act as your dining table, your desk, your craft table, whatever you
want. The seamless design means there are no screen corners just waiting
to fill up with Cheddar Goldfish crumbs and the like.

Now, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a touchscreen device made for your tabletop. Earlier this year at CES, Lenovo revealed a 27-inch multi-user multi-touch tabletop PC dubbed the IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC.
At 27 inches, this doesn’t really light a candle to TableConnect, but
could be a more practical investment (prices start at $1,449) since it
can also angle up and act as a regular tablet or PC.

And when the Microsoft Surface surfaced (three cheers for puns!), Samsung promptly served up a 40-inch touch table made to work with the Surface through Microsoft PixelSense.

But back to TableConnect!
Pledge options range from 5 euros to 100,000, but none of the rewards
include an actual table… yet. We’re intrigued to see if this gains any
real traction, or if it will continue to be one of those Internet
legends that never gets made. We’ve gotta admit – we’d love to try out
the 32-inch prototype. Part of us wonders if the DIY version (a TV on
it’s side connected to your phone via Chromecast or something of that
nature) is actually feasible.